Hutch in the 1911 Census?

[Sam Flynn]

I'm really not sure that this "family history" did exist before Reg was in touch with the author of "The Ripper and the Royals".

Other members of the Topping family, with whom others on these boards have been in touch, might dispute that, Dave. Besides, take that one factor away and we're still left with the signatures and the rest to back up the identification.

[DVV]

Sam,
I'm not in the "secret des princes" (c'est le cas de le dire), but if other members of the family were already talking of Astrakhan Man as Sir Randolph, well, I'd say they were all ripe for Broadmoor.

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

if other members of the family were already talking of Astrakhan Man as Sir Randolph, well, I'd say they were all ripe for Broadmoor.

I agree, Dave - that said, I'm almost certain that Reg didn't volunteer that information himself, rather that Fairclough suggested it to him. In its bare essentials, Reg (and family) affirm that their ancestor was the Dorset Street witness, and there's nothing inherently crazy - or unlikely - about that.

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi David,

talking of Astrakhan Man as Sir Randolph

Would make some sense, though. As a young man and into middle age, Sir RC wore a cost with Astrakhan trim. He wore one to the siege of Sidney Street.

Roy

[Sam Flynn]

Would make some sense, though. As a young man and into middle age, Sir RC wore a cost with Astrakhan trim

Let's not go there on this thread, which has a pretty straightforward remit, and a well-defined scope. The theories of Melvin Fairclough belong not only on a different thread, but quite possibly on another planet!

[Ben]

You use the term 'polar opposite' quite gratuitously here.

Not really, Mike. I'm not saying that the whole thing is a polar opposite. I'm saying that some elements are polar opposite in appearance, such as a double-stemmed h with a very small base and a tall stem is the opposite of a single-stemmed h with largish base and a shortish stem. The handwritings analysts came to the opinion that they were not written by the same man; the witness and Toppy, that is. It isn't their job to conclude a thing with certainty, and all of us here should follow that example.

The difference is, I have no stake in it. Can you say the same thing about yourself?

I can, Mike, and with the upmost sincerety at that, considering that Hutchinson's identity wouldn't remotely ennervate anything else I've suggested with regard to Hutchinson, with the possible exception that he may have been Fleming, but that is by no means a pet theory of min. Just one reasonable explanation.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

David writes:

"I wouldn't be surprized either if 2 Londoners from the same social class, who had learned how to write in the same kind of schools, with the same method, and are not used to write daily when adults, have more or less the same handwriting"

Even if we accept that people could be shooled to the same handwriting, school was not so much for conformity as to christain all pupils George Hutchinson, David!

The best,
Fisherman

[Malcolm X]

Hi David,



Would make some sense, though. As a young man and into middle age, Sir RC wore a cost with Astrakhan trim. He wore one to the siege of Sidney Street.

Roy

HA HA, no lets not go there

[Fisherman]

Ben asks (I sidestep the rest of his post, as Sams reappearance on the arena has filled in a good deal of the blanks):
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Wrong as it happens, but you'd be basing this "sneaking suspicion" on...?"

On my conviction that you are unable to let go of your obviously fallacious conception of who Hutch was - and what. I simply believe that this unability clouds your mind. So in fact, there never WAS any vote of confidence for you on my behalf when it comes to this particular issue. Far from it.

One more thing, since you keep saying that I am trying to morph opinion into fact. My picture of it is that you are doing the exact opposite!

Look at this like this; I will provide a small collection of examples, and then I would be interested to hear your wiew - and other wiews too, of course.

1. You find two 2009 Lamborghini diablo´s on the street, fresh from the factory. They are both of the same colour, and equipped in the exact same fashion. You say "Those two cars look very much the same".

Is that a fact, or is it merely your opinion? If I told you that they are not remotley alike, but instead Lamborghini number one looks more or less exactly like the Green Maserati on the other side of the road - then would THAT be an opinion or a fact?

2. You run into two single-egg twin girls. You say: These two look very much the same"

If I told you that they were not at all very much alike, but instead one of them looked just like you, whereas the other did nothing of the sort - would my words be an example of opinion or fact in such a case? And what about yours? Would you regard it a fact that they looked very much the same, or would you start measuring lengths of eyebrows and such?

3. The Presley signatures I posted earlier show dissimilarities, but I think most people would agree that we can easily see that they are very much alike.
And if most people do think so - are we dealing with a great number of opinions that may well be wrong - or are we dealing with a fact?

You know my answers to these questions - we are in ALL three cases dealing with clear and simple facts. The similarities inbetween the Lamborghinis, the single-egg twins and the Presley signatures are not there due to our opinion that they look alike. They are FACTUALLY very (or totally) similar.

And how do we reach these conclusions? They are all quite complex things, remember. The cars are three-dimensional and represent myriads of lines, volumes and materials. The twins are even more complex - they don´t even stand still so that we can see them from the exact same angle.
And still, our powers of vision and perception do not have a tough nut to crack - instead it is a piece of cake.
And the signatures? Arguably, they represent the smallest number of lines BY FAR, and they are two-dimensional and static. Consequentially, we have no problem at all to see that they are similar. There are built-in dissimilarities, just as there are very many more such dissimilarities inbetween the twins - but these are NOT where our eyes and minds focus - instead we see the most obvious and relevant thing; they resemble each other closely.

So, we have dissected three different types of objects and we have done so without employing any expertise. We did not have to - who would hire an expert to tell them that things like these are similar? Nobody, that´s who. We hire the experts to try and find THE DISCREPANCIES most of the time, and we employ them only when our own sight and perception cannot take care of it ourselves.

And sometimes, an expert may be able to tell that there are dissimilarities involved that may urge us to be careful before we say with any certainty that two signatures were written by the same man. Of course, forgery is many times such an example. During WWII there was a Dutch forger who made so good copies of paintings that all the experts involved were ready to swear that they were genuine, and that lead to a threat on the forgers behalf (can´t remember his name at the moment) to go to jail for theft of unvaluable art treasures. It was not until he could prove that the oil colour he had used included bakelit that an amazed art world realized that he was correct. He had baked the paintings in an oven to produce the cracks of age that occur in old oil paint.

So, yes, looks can deceive! But the salient matter here is that though anybody would be terribly wrong to say that the Rembrandts the forger painted were the real stuff, it was and remains A FACT that the paintings DID resemble each other very closely.

And there you are Ben - don´t morph FACT into (your) opinion - we are many out here who say that the signatures we are dealing with are very good matches, and when peoples gifts of perception concur to such an extent, then we are dealing with a fact. We wiew the signatures as very good matches because they ARE very good matches.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Sam! Thanks for your work and the presentation of the 1911 signatures! But I think we will have to settle for knowing ourselves (which is pretty rewarding in itself!) - some will NEVER give up a cause, no matter how lost it is! We know we are right, and that will do for me!

Oooops - I said that I was right again! But who cares? If somebody (I wonder who....?) should find it annoying, I can always say that I did not say the same thing at all, it is merely their OPINION that there was a resemblance inbetween my wordings on the issue!

The best, Sam!

[Fisherman]

An observation: As Toppy listed his son ""Lenoard", he did so with a bridging between the "t" and the "c" that does NOT appear in ANY other of the signatures. Suddenly, the "t" does not display the soft bend into the "c" that is consistent in all other examples of his writing Hutchinson ( and in the police report page three signature).

If this discrepancy had been there, not in the "Lenoard" signature, but only in the police report signature, those who say that the signatures differ way to dramatically to display even a close likeness would have had a field day. There would, I suspect, had been delvings into what could well have been named a "Hutchism" - there is only the one "t" in the police signature, and to argue that the Dorset Street witness signed his t:s in a dramatically different way that Toppy did, would - on the surface - have seen a unescapable "truth".
We now know that this was NOT the way Toppy signed his t:s - we have a large set of examples telling us that the style element of his t:s, at least in 1911, involved the soft bend into the c that followed.
Since we have too little evidence deriving from the police report, we must be careful to overrate the importance of style elements. Deviations are not "Hutchisms" as long as we have too little to go by - they remain deviations, nothing else. And deviations WILL be there, as evinced by "Lenoard" Hutchinson. But as long as the overall likeness is there, that´s what matters.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Lenoard...

Good observation, Fish - however, Toppy actually goes over the "t-c" junction again, albeit very faintly. You can't see it in the B/W version I posted, because I compressed the image to a manageable size. This "revisiting" of the "t-c" is only just about visible on the original in any case:



It's still not a smooth transition, however, as you rightly observe.

[Fisherman]

Ah! Thanks for that, Sam! All the little bits and pieces in their correct places...!

Have a good nights sleep - I know I will!

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Let´s try another one, Sam! How about Albert Hutchinson - can you see the "toppyism" of the tail of the finishing "n" pointing up towards the sky? I can´t...

NOW I´ll try to get some sleep - fascinating stuff, signatures. I´ll have another look at them toworrow morning!

The best!
Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Let´s try another one, Sam! How about Albert Hutchinson - can you see the "toppyism" of the tail of the finishing "n" pointing up towards the sky? I can´t...

It does begin to trail upwards, Fish, and it does carry on, faintly, to curve upwards and indeed back on itself slightly. But this is a minor issue - I'm satisfied that Hutchinson wrote his "n" differently in 1888, and I'm perfectly comfortable with that, as signatures are not immutable.